Occupational injuries in Alberta: responding to recent trends.

General patterns of injury in the Alberta workplace are reflected in figures from the Workers' Compensation Board, which reliably enumerates acute injuries but not necessarily chronic musculoskeletal conditions. Roughly one-quarter of these injuries are to the back and neck. The absolute number of injuries is of interest in terms of the overall problem of injury in the workplace, but the rate of injury is used to set priorities for intervention among industries. The injury rate identifies industries at greatest risk given the size and activity of their workforce. Using rates, industries can be classified as high or low risk. Over time, claim rates for the major industrial sectors have been fairly stable. Rates from 1987 and 1988 were used in setting provincial government initiatives to control injury frequency and severity and are examined in this report. Construction is clearly a high-risk industry. It involves many trades and operations that have an inherently high risk. The situation is different for the manufacturing sector. This also has a very high injury experience. However, unlike construction, the risk is concentrated in one sub-industry-meat and poultry packing. As a single sector, oil and gas has a low risk. When the industry is broken down into its component functions, however, the oil and gas exploration, drilling and servicing components are clearly out of line with the rest of the sector. Risk is highly concentrated in these sub-industries. Data from Alberta confirm that smaller employers generally have a higher injury risk than larger employers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)